Pandemic News and Research

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A pandemic is a global disease outbreak. During a pandemic, transmission can be anticipated in the workplace, not only from patient to workers in health care settings, but also among co-workers in general work settings. A pandemic would cause high levels of illness, death, social disruption, and economic loss. Everyday life would be disrupted because so many people in so many places become seriously ill at the same time. Impacts could range from school and business closings to the interruption of basic services such as public transportation and food delivery.

COVID-19, mass testing and the utility of wastewater epidemiology

In a recent study, researchers developed a methodology to detect SARS-CoV-2 RNA in wastewater with the potential for finding an association between the wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) SARS-CoV-2 influent viral RNA load and COVID-19 cases in the community. This study indicates that a national scale wastewater-based epidemiology can play a role in COVID-19 surveillance.

31 May 2021

SARS-CoV-2 genome mutations display convergent evolution indicating strong adaptive advantages

A recent report by a team of researchers focused on the extent of convergent evolution in the SARS-CoV-2 spike (S) protein. The report confirms that top SARS-CoV-2 lineages of concern have the most convergent spike protein mutations. This indicates their fundamental adaptive advantage.

31 May 2021

SARS-CoV-2 variants partially escape humoral immunity, but not T cells responses, study finds

Researchers at the Department of Viroscience, Erasmus MC, National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, Amsterdam UMC, and the Weill Medical College of Cornell University studied humoral and cellular immune responses to the wild type SARS-CoV-2, the B.1.1.7 variant (U.K. variant) and the B.1.351 variant (South African variant) in health care workers vaccinated with the BNT162b2 (Pfizer-BioNTech) mRNA vaccine.

31 May 2021

Intra-host SARS-CoV-2 composition varies over time, hinting at viral evolution during infection

Researchers at the Southern University of Science and Technology in China revealed rapid and dramatic changes in quasispecies diversity upon evaluating the SARS-CoV-2 populations present in the upper and lower respiratory tracts of patients with varying COVID-19 severity.

31 May 2021

Corilagin: could a plant compound used in Chinese herbal medicine help prevent COVID-19?

The study, published in the journal Phytomedicine, characterized an active compound, corilagin (a derivative from Phyllanthus urinaria), as potential SARS-CoV-2 entry inhibitors for its preventive application in daily antiviral hygiene products.

31 May 2021

A novel multi-epitope COVID-19 vaccine developed using reverse vaccinology

A new study has been published in the Journal of Biomolecular Structure and Dynamics which focuses on the evaluation of E, M, N, ORF10, ORF8, ORF3a, and M proteins using bioinformatics tools to develop a multi-epitope COVID-19 vaccine. The researchers utilized in-silico methods to incite humoral and cellular immune responses.

31 May 2021

India is banking on locally developed kit to increase COVID-19 testing

India is banking on a locally developed, affordable home-use kit to bump up testing for COVID-19 and reduce the burden on public resources struggling against a runaway pandemic now raging through the country in a deadly second wave.

31 May 2021

A call to action to share 2 billion doses of COVAX in 2021

Countries that are advanced in their vaccination programmes are seeing cases of COVID-19 decline, hospitalizations decrease and early signs of some kind of normality resume.

31 May 2021

B.1.617.2 variant of SARS-CoV-2 is partially resistant to antibody-mediated neutralization

A team of scientists from France has recently conducted a study to evaluate the sensitivity of the B.1.617 variant of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) to antibody-mediated neutralization.

31 May 2021

Reusing old vaccines to boost innate immunity against COVID-19

The COVID-19 vaccine is currently the best form of protection against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and its variants. But a new perspective article published in the journal PNAS suggests it’s not the panacea to stopping SARS-CoV-2.

31 May 2021

Waking up just one hour earlier can reduce risk of major depression, indicates study

Waking up just one hour earlier could reduce a person's risk of major depression by 23%, suggests a sweeping new genetic study published May 26 in the journal JAMA Psychiatry.

29 May 2021

Chemists use new technique to manufacture pharmaceutical cholesterol from plant-based materials

Chemists at Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg have, in collaboration with colleagues from CordenPharma, succeeded for the first time in manufacturing pharmaceutical cholesterol from plant-based materials using a highly-effective technique.

29 May 2021

Effect of COVID-19 pandemic on patients with rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus

In the Philippines, in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, there occurred a supply shortage of hydroxychloroquine and methotrexate. Limited access to medication and the life changes caused from the COVID-19 pandemic may prompt patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) or systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) to experience disease flares.

29 May 2021

New resolution urges Member States to focus on prevention and management of diabetes, obesity

A new resolution urges Member States to raise the priority given to the prevention, diagnosis and control of diabetes as well as prevention and management of risk factors such as obesity.

29 May 2021

Synbal and La Jolla Institute for Immunology collaborate to develop better COVID-19 models

The La Jolla Institute for Immunology (LJI) is partnering with Synbal, Inc., a preclinical biotechnology company based in San Diego, CA, to develop multi-gene, humanized mouse models for COVID-19 research. The research at LJI will be led by Professor Sujan Shresta, Ph.D., a member of the Institute's Center for Infectious Disease and Vaccine Research.

29 May 2021

AI technology can assess COVID-19 severity with a promising degree of accuracy

Artificial intelligence (AI) technology developed by researchers at the University of Waterloo is capable of assessing the severity of COVID-19 cases with a promising degree of accuracy.

29 May 2021

DFG establishes new collaborative research centers to promote world-class research at universities

The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) is establishing eleven new Collaborative Research Centers (CRC) to promote world-class research at universities. This was announced by the relevant Grants Committee, which met by video conference due to the coronavirus pandemic.

29 May 2021

Pandemic News and Research

Further Reading

COVID-19, mass testing and the utility of wastewater epidemiology

SARS-CoV-2 genome mutations display convergent evolution indicating strong adaptive advantages

SARS-CoV-2 variants partially escape humoral immunity, but not T cells responses, study finds

Intra-host SARS-CoV-2 composition varies over time, hinting at viral evolution during infection

Corilagin: could a plant compound used in Chinese herbal medicine help prevent COVID-19?

A novel multi-epitope COVID-19 vaccine developed using reverse vaccinology

India is banking on locally developed kit to increase COVID-19 testing

A call to action to share 2 billion doses of COVAX in 2021

B.1.617.2 variant of SARS-CoV-2 is partially resistant to antibody-mediated neutralization

Reusing old vaccines to boost innate immunity against COVID-19

Waking up just one hour earlier can reduce risk of major depression, indicates study

Chemists use new technique to manufacture pharmaceutical cholesterol from plant-based materials

Effect of COVID-19 pandemic on patients with rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus

New resolution urges Member States to focus on prevention and management of diabetes, obesity

Synbal and La Jolla Institute for Immunology collaborate to develop better COVID-19 models

AI technology can assess COVID-19 severity with a promising degree of accuracy

DFG establishes new collaborative research centers to promote world-class research at universities

Africa has the highest death rates among critically ill COVID-19 patients, shows study

Heart Failure 2021 to showcase latest evidence on prevention, management of heart failure

Increased funding will help reduce cancer incidence caused by tobacco use

Best practices - optimize qPCR processes for pathogen detection eBook

Bringing real-time analytics to downstream bioprocess monitoring

Designing fluidic architecture for scalable diagnostic platforms

Evaluating new approaches for rare disease genomics

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